


The Things We Do For Love

by PureShores



Category: New Amsterdam (TV 2018)
Genre: After The Crash, F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, Missing Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 19:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureShores/pseuds/PureShores
Summary: 'She loves him all the time, Quietly, privately, but constantly.' The complicated story of Helen Sharpe and Max Goodwin told in missing moments, and speculation for the future, through her eyes. Because loving him is bloody hard work.





	The Things We Do For Love

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at a New Amsterdam story, and probably one of the more challenging ones I've ever written. I really hope you will enjoy it. I do apologise for the length, I got a little carried away.
> 
> Title credit "The Things We Do For Love" by 10cc. These characters are not mine.

‘Sharpe! Hey, Sharpe!’

  
Rarely a day goes by when someone doesn’t yell her name in New Amsterdam. With cancer a scourge on the medical world, she is needed for a lot of consults. Of course, most of her colleagues have the courtesy to add the word ‘doctor’ to the summons, as opposed to just bellowing ‘Sharpe!’ over and over until she responds.

Then again, most of her colleagues are not Max Goodwin, medical director, and probably one of the only people in New Amsterdam that she would allow to shout at her so in the bustling hallways. He has the advantage of being her boss of course, but even if he weren’t, she rather thinks she’d let him do it anyway, because it’s just who he is. He has two settings, ‘stop’ and ‘go, go, go’ and to be frank, she’s only ever seen him do the former when someone forces him to.

She reaches the elevator bank, and turns to see him flying toward her, ducking and weaving between the staff and patients. The puzzled looks on the patients’ faces and the slight exasperation of the staff as he darts past them makes her want to smile. New Amsterdam has never had a medical director like Max before. His somewhat manic energy and enthusiasm seems to be seeping into the very soul of the place, like it’s pulsing with untapped potential. For so long, it has felt as though they were simply trying to hold back the tide of human misery, with limited success. Now, with Max at the helm, it feels as though they have a fighting chance. They are so, so lucky to have him.

And it’s her job to try to keep the cancer inside him from taking that away. Though by looking at him right now, you would never guess what his body was doing to him.

‘Jeez, Sharpe, where’s the fire?” he pants, finally arriving at her side as the elevator arrives. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling?’

She rolls her eyes. “I knew you’d catch up eventually.”

He gasps in mock hurt. “So, you’re saying you allowed a sick man to chase you down two corridors merely for your own amusement?”

“No. The sick man _elected_ to chase me down two corridors, seeming to forget that if he actually wanted to tell me something, he could do so without even moving a muscle.” At his slightly puzzled look, she holds up her cell phone. “And as your doctor, I am going to point out once again that you need to _slow down_.”

  
Ever since she took on his case at his request, they have been at an impasse on this point. Chemotherapy and radiation are brutal, and she has seen enough patients go through it to know how traumatic it is on the body, but he simply refuses to accept his own limitations and continues to carry on as though he is the healthiest man in existence.

  
Sure enough, he waves her concern away as though it were an irritating fly. “There’ll be time for that when I don’t have a hospital to run.”

She wonders what it will take to make him take his cancer seriously. They have had more than one heated discussion about that very point. She resists the temptation to get into it now, because they are in a crowded elevator. Max’s medical needs are his private business after all, and the last thing the hospital needs is for word to get around that the medical director and his newly capped deputy are at loggerheads already. She only took the job on a week ago, and her workload has already doubled.

  
Why did she say yes?

If she’s honest with herself, she knows the answer. It’s because when he asked her, he gave her _that_ look. The one that seems to say, _‘you saying yes to this crazy idea is the only thing I need in the world right now. You’re not going to deprive me of that, are you?_ ’

It’s downright dangerous, that look.

She thinks Max senses what she’s thinking, because he raises his eyebrows at her, and says nothing else until they leave the elevator and are hurtling down yet another corridor. She’s not actually sure where they’re going, as she simply falls into step beside him as she usually does. It seems their whole relationship is based on this: following where he leads.

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said in the elevator,” he says as he finally slows his pace. “I know you’re right.”

“Then for God’s sake Max, why won’t you listen?”

It comes out with a little more bite than she means it to. Max is a brilliant doctor, a wonderful medical director and probably one of the best examples of a human being she has ever met, but as a patient, he is frustrating as hell. Sometimes she questions why he insisted on her overseeing his case, when he pushes back on almost everything she suggests. They’re slowing right down now, and she sees that they’re approaching his office. He opens the door, gestures for her to enter then follows her in and shuts it behind them. Now they’re finally alone, he allows the bravado to slip away and sits heavily in his chair.

“If I slow down, the hospital slows down,” he says. “If the hospital slows down, we lose more lives. I can’t do that.”

  
And this right here is the number one reason why Max is such a good medical director. He cares about everyone, and he cares so much that he will put the world first at the expense of himself. It’s one of his most endearing qualities, but she has been an oncologist long enough to know what happens when a cancer patient spreads themselves too thin. And it isn’t pleasant.

“You have to.” She tries to deliver the admonition gently, but this is the hard truth he needs to hear. “If you want to survive this, Max, you have to make yourself a priority. There is no other way.”  
He looks mournfully up at her, and her heart breaks for him. He has so much to live for. His wife, his unborn child, this hospital. He hasn’t been here all that long, but she already knows that he has made his mark on New Amsterdam. The place would feel emptier without him.

“I know that in my head,” he admits, quietly. “But I can’t just accept it. I can’t be someone who just falls apart and becomes useless to everything and everyone he cares about, just because he’s sick. I can’t do it, Helen.”

“You have to,” she repeats, touching his arm, just for a moment, and feels him jump at the brief contact. “You have to because Georgia needs you to be there. And your daughter needs her father. New Amsterdam will survive.”

“Promise me you’ll take care of it.” He seizes her hand suddenly, and she glances down at him in surprise. He’s giving her the Look again, and she immediately feels herself soften. “I asked you to be my deputy because if” (he heavily emphasizes the word) “if I have to step down, there’s nobody else I’d trust to run New Amsterdam other than you.”

He gives her hand a gentle squeeze, and strangely, she feels something like an electrical pulse race across her skin. It has been a long time since somebody held her hand. She misses it, and the comfort it brings. He needs comfort right now, so she squeezes it back.

“Promise me,” he persists. “I put my life in your hands, and I’m never going to give up the fight, but one day, if it comes down to it, promise me you won’t let the hospital go into the hands of someone else.”  
She doesn’t know what to say. She can’t give him meaningless platitudes about how everything’s going to be fine because they both know she can’t promise that. She can’t assure him that she will be able to carry on the fight in his stead, because there’s no guarantee the Board will allow her to do so. And she certainly can’t beg him to fight with everything he has and tell him that the thought of losing him makes her feel physically ill, because that’s not her place. She’s his doctor, and his deputy, and his friend, but she can’t instill in him the will to live. Only he can do that.  
But she also can’t tell him all this, because he is nearly impossible to say no to.

“I promise, Max,” she says softly. “I promise, I’ll try.”

* * *

 

She washes her hands in the bathroom sink on autopilot, as though scrubbing in for a surgery. It’s been an awful morning. She’s had to give horrible news to two people, a 24-year-old man who’s just qualified for his dream job with the fire department, and a 47-year-old woman who lives alone, with no family support network, and will be lucky if she lives another full year.  
She had to watch the young man’s distraught mother fling herself onto her son, and sob as though the world was ending, which for that family, it probably is. And she watched her female patient recoil when she told her the news, like she had received a physical blow. She felt like an intruder on their grief. She always does.

But as ever, life in New Amsterdam goes on. She’s supposed to be meeting Max in a few minutes down in the atrium for lunch. And by ‘lunch’ she means that she will eat, and Max will snag a bite or two of whatever she’s having because eating too much of anything makes him nauseous. They try to do this semi-regularly, so they can discuss hospital business, like a director and his deputy, or just to spend time together, like friends. There are so many different components to their relationship, each one must be nurtured individually.

She looks forward to these lunches. They’re a bright spot in her day. And if she feels a certain inward joy at having Max all to herself for just a little while, that’s her business and nobody else’s.  
Particularly not Max.

She studies herself in the mirror. She thinks she looks haggard, (one too many night shifts this week) and her lipstick needs reapplying. She’s on the point of reaching into her pocket for it when she hesitates. What does she care about her appearance anyway, it’s just lunch with Max?

But it’s lunch. With Max. And she cares about his opinion. She shouldn’t. Its pointless.

But she does.

She arrives in the atrium five minutes later. Max has just texted her saying he’s been waylaid by Dora but will be there as soon as he can shake her off. So, she’s taken by surprise when somebody calls her name.

Her heart sinks a little when she spots Akash hurrying towards her, not because she isn’t pleased to see him, but because she’s forgotten their lunch date. Every Sunday night, they compare their very full schedules to see when they’ll be able to see each other during the coming week. This week is tighter than usual, and this afternoon is one of only two times they are both free. Or they were, until Max stuck his head into her office this morning between her appointments with her patients and asked her to lunch, which she immediately agreed to, completely forgetting about her existing plans.

Akash greets her cheerfully, with an embrace and a kiss. He’s always happy to see her, and not shy about being affectionate, which she likes about him. It’s nice to be wanted.

“Ready to go?” he asks. “If you don’t want to eat here, there’s a place just down the street that makes great sandwiches…what’s wrong?” They’ve been dating for a while now, long enough for him to have gotten pretty good at reading her emotions.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she really is sorry. “I completely forgot about our date and I kind of double-booked.”

“Really?” he asks, and she can tell he’s hurt. “With whom?”

“Hey Sharpe,” As if on cue, Max appears at her side. “I managed to escape Dora by feigning nausea. But it wasn’t all pretend, talking numbers and figures really does make me feel sick-hello Dr Panthaki, are you joining us?”

Akash smiles at Max and greets him cordially but throws a significant look at her that she doesn’t miss. Max is something of a sore point between them. Akash thinks Max expects far too much from her, almost to the point of taking advantage. She argues that Max is her friend and that she is proud to help him, however he needs. He needs her right now, and she doesn’t want to let him or his family down.

“Helen and I had a lunch date,” says Akash, “but apparently she’s since made other plans.” His tone is polite enough, but she can see the slight furrow of his brow and knows he’s annoyed with her, as he has a right to be.

When she looks at Max, she sees him glancing between the two of them, taking in the situation. She sees something pass through his eyes, a flicker of disappointment? But it’s so brief she might have imagined it.

“It’s not important,” he says, easily, and she recognizes the tone he always uses when he’s trying to smooth ruffled feathers. “We can catch up in my office later, Sharpe. Have a great time.” He smiles, but it’s not the roguish, trademark Max Goodwin smile she knows, and she understands. He was looking forward to this as much as she was. He _is_ disappointed.

They leave him standing there, in the atrium, and she can’t resist looking back at him over her shoulder as they walk away, hand-in-hand. He looks smaller somehow, like he’s not holding himself with that stubborn confidence he is known for. Like he’s trying to disappear into the rush of people around him.

As they eat their (admittedly delicious) gourmet sandwiches, Akash chats away about how his medical trial is shaping up. She listens with half an ear, because she can’t get the image of Max out of her head.

* * *

 

Telling him she can’t be his doctor anymore is one of the hardest things she has ever done. He makes it harder still when he all but begs her to change her mind. She doesn’t want to do it, but she feels like she simply has to. Their relationship has grown to the point where people are starting to talk, to see things that aren’t there. It has gotten to the stage where people seek _her_ out if they can’t find Max, not because she’s his deputy but because they assume he’ll either be with her, or she will know where he is. And most of the time, they’re right. Even though they can go full days without seeing one another sometimes, they’re in constant text contact and she has a general idea of what he’s up to on any given day.

It’s too much. Something has to give. She committed to be his deputy, and she doesn’t want to stop being his friend and his confidante so there’s only one thing to do.

Doctor Staunton is what he needs. He needs a firm hand and a straight talker. He needs a simple doctor-patient relationship, without a thousand other muddled emotions getting in the way. She’s doing this because she doesn’t just want him to live, she needs him to. Somehow, after only a short time, he’s become her best friend, the one who knows more about her than anyone else, even Akash.  
She owes it to him, his family, herself, and this hospital to give him his best chance.

Even though he’s not her patient anymore, she keeps a close eye on him, and is horrified by what she sees. The aggressive chemotherapy is working, but at what cost? He has become a shadow of his former self, gaunt and weak. He shuffles now, and she almost can’t believe this is the same man who used to _run_ down the hospital corridors to save lives. He is hovering somewhere between very ill, and barely alive, and all the things that make him Max are being sapped away from him, one by one. He can’t go on like this. If the cancer doesn’t kill him, the chemo will, and soon.

When he collapses on the incline, it is the last straw. This is her fault, for palming him off to someone else, just to make things less complicated for herself. She has been a poor excuse for a doctor, not to mention a friend.

She will not go to Brussels with Akash. She will find another treatment plan. She will make Max go home, right now, and make him stay there until he is strong enough to come back to work, even if she has to enlist Georgia to barricade him in. She will do everything in her power to save him.

It takes a combined effort, and the sheer force of will of both them to get him to the cab. He clings to her the whole way, and it breaks her heart all over again. This is not the man she knows. This is not the man she cares about, and worries about, and sometimes thinks about in ways she shouldn’t because he’s married, and he’s sick, and he’s about to be a father, and he’s her boss, and her patient, and she’s with someone, and it’s just too complicated.

“This is not the end,” she tells him, and she means it. She won’t let it be.

* * *

 

She wakes up after the ambulance crash, aching in places she didn’t even know she had. Her head is throbbing, her chest is sore, and she feels as though she’s been run over by a truck. As soon as her mind clears enough to think about something other than the pain, she begins to worry. What happened? What happened to Georgia and Bloom? And Max had only been a few feet away, holding his baby, and oh God, what happened to them? What if they’re injured, or worse?

A nurse, passing by the bed, notices she’s awake and pages for assistance. It turns out Floyd is the one to answer the call. He smiles to see her awake, and quickly fills her in. Bloom was in the front seat when it happened, and was injured badly, including several broken bones and serious internal injuries. The two paramedics are dead. Max and Luna, by some miracle, are largely unscathed. But when she asks about Georgia, Floyd bows his head, and she knows the worst. He confirms it, the blood she ran three blocks to deliver bought Georgia more time, but in the confusion after the crash, with four other victims to tend to, they couldn’t save her.

“How’s Max?” she can’t help but ask. Her heart aches for him. He must be devastated.

“It’s worse than that time he made an ass out of me at the review,” says Floyd in a low voice, so the nurses don’t hear. “It’s like he’s switched off. All he’s been doing for the last twelve hours is holding the baby and asking if you’re awake yet.”

“What?”

“It’s true.” An ICU nurse has stopped by the bed to check her saline bag, and painkillers. “Dr Goodwin has been asking for hourly updates on your condition, even when it was clear you were going to pull through. He’s driving us mad.”

“Where is he?”

She wants to see him so badly it’s all she can think about. She wants to see him with her own two eyes, hear his voice, meet his child. She wants to try and comfort him about losing his wife so suddenly and horribly. He must be in agony.

Floyd and the nurse exchange looks.

“Georgia’s parents have arrived,” Floyd informs her. “They’re talking about, you know…arrangements.”

He’s planning his wife’s funeral. He should be celebrating the birth of their child, but he’s about to bury her mother. And he’s still so ill. There’s every chance that Luna Goodwin will be an orphan one day soon, unless she and Max can get his cancer under control.

Much as she’d like to get out of this bed, go and find him, and throw her arms around him, she doesn’t think she currently possesses the energy to do so. So, she texts him instead.

_Heard about Georgia. I’m so sorry, Max._

There’s no reply for a while. She figures he’s got more important things to worry about right now; he’s grieving, Georgia’s parents must be grieving, and he’s got his brand-new baby. A doctor has come to examine her, and she has been given, and subsequently rejected, the hideous hospital lunch when her phone pings.

_Glad to hear you’re finally awake, you scared the hell out of me._

It’s the kind of message that seems flippant, but she knows better. She knows how hard it is for him to talk about what’s bothering him. He likes to be seen as capable of handling anything, but she knows he can’t be as okay as this text message makes him seem, not after what he has lost.

_Is there anything I can do?_ She knows from experience how unhelpful those words can be after a loss but it’s all she can think of to say.

_Just get better._ The reply comes zooming back. _I can’t lose you, too._

That last sentence sends a tingle down her spine. She knows they’re close, knows that he appreciates her, but he doesn’t often say it. And she’s right there with him, she can’t quite come to grips with the fact that he too could have been killed today, and then all the chemo and the radiotherapy and the suffering and the pain would have been for nothing.

Her room plays host to a constant stream of visitors all day. Her colleagues, her friends from different areas of the hospital, even some of her patients here for chemo pop in to see how she’s doing, all expressing their relief that she’s okay. She’s actually a little taken aback that so many people care so much. This is what medicine is all about, being there for people when they need it the most. She’d forgotten that, in recent years, in a whirl of television appearances, chauffeured cars, and expensive handbags. She’d forgotten why she chose to be a doctor in the first place.

It’s late afternoon when there’s yet another knock at her door. She barely has time to wonder who else could possibly be here when the door opens and Max walks inside, Luna in his arms.

Floyd was right, physically, Max seems to have escaped most forms of injury, aside from a cut on his cheek. But his eyes are missing their usual merry fire; they are cold and lifeless. He looks as if he has aged ten years in a day. He’s clutching the baby like she’s about to be ripped from his arms any second. He looks broken.

It breaks her heart.

His eyes rake over her, looking for she knows not what, but she supposes he can’t blame him as she was just doing the same. He attempts a smile, manages half of one, and she is so glad he is still alive to do that.

“You look like hell, Sharpe,” he says softly.

“Well, you know, motor accidents aren’t really known to do wonders for the complexion.”

He lets out a little huffing sound that she guesses is as close to a laugh as he can muster right now. In his arms, Luna stirs a little, and he glances down at her anxiously.

“She’s beautiful, Max,” says Helen.

He nods in agreement. “She’s Georgia in miniature. Every detail. Look.”

He approaches the bed and brings the baby close to her. She can see what he means, in part. Luna has inherited Georgia’s nose, ears, and fair skin, but when the baby opens her eyes and gazes up at her, Max is shining out of them, and she knows instinctively that when Luna smiles, it will be the mirror image of her father’s. She keeps her opinions to herself, however. Max has just lost his wife. He will probably see her everywhere for a while, especially in their daughter. It’s only natural.

“I’m so sorry, Max” she says, as Max draws his daughter close to him again, hushing her under his breath.

She can see the beginnings of tears in his eyes, as he tenderly kisses Luna on the forehead. She wonders if this is the first time he has cried, since it happened. If he has been doing what he always does, pushing on, getting things done, waiting for a moment where he can finally break down.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” he whispers. “I can’t believe I gained a daughter but lost my wife all in one day. And now she’s going to grow up not knowing her mother. It isn’t fair.”

‘No, it isn’t,” Helen agrees. ‘Nothing about what you and your family have had to go through the last year is fair. I wish there was something I could do.”

He meets her eye, and suddenly there’s a hint of the old spark in there. “Helen, you have done more than you could possibly know,” he says, quietly. “You have gone above and beyond in every capacity, and I know I haven’t done much to make things easier for you.”

She notices his hand is twitching a little and wonders if he weren’t supporting his daughter, if he might have reached over to take her hand, like she did the day they put in the feeding tube.

“And now, I’m going to ask even more of you,” he continues, looking ashamed. “I need you to get back on your feet. Because I am not going to be able to handle all this without you around.” He pauses for a moment. “If that’s okay by you, of course?”

He looks so forlorn, standing there, gazing at her beseechingly, cradling his child. Asking her, once again, for her help.

How can she refuse him?

She can’t.

* * *

 

She and Akash have been on rocky ground for a while, since before the crash, but it all comes to a head one night, two weeks after Georgia’s funeral. They’ve ordered in Chinese and she’s getting plates ready for when it arrives, and then her phone rings. It’s Max, as it usually is, and she chats to him about Luna (who apparently has quite the appetite for a baby), and the hospital (the quarterly budget is nearly due), and what he’s reading right now (some fantasy novel with an odd name she keeps forgetting. She suspects he fancies himself the brave knight, defending the oppressed.) She knows the real reason he’s calling is because he has immunotherapy tomorrow and he’s nervous. He’s only had a few sessions so far and the side effects have only just started to kick in. She knows he’s dreading when they start to intensify.

“Go get some sleep, Max,” she says, when she hears him attempting to stifle a yawn down the phone. “You know what they say, when the baby is sleeping, you should be too.”

“I know,” he says. “But she’s just so gorgeous, I just want to look at her all the time.”

She can’t help but smile, and she can hear the warmth in her voice as she tells him once again, to go to bed. This time, he agrees.

“See you tomorrow, doc.”

“Goodnight, Max.”

“’Night, Helen.”

She’s noticed recently that he only calls her by her given name when they’re alone. She doesn’t know what to make of it.

She hangs up the phone, reaches for the plates beside her, and finds that they’re gone. Akash is currently loading them up with the Chinese food.

“It’s here already?” It smells great, and she’s hungry. “That was fast.”

“Not really. You’ve been on the phone for nearly half an hour,” says Akash, shortly, and she detects the sourness in his tone that has been there all too frequently lately.

“I’m sorry,” she says, though she’s not quite sure what she’s apologizing for. She has a right to talk to her friend if she wants to. “I didn’t realize.”

He sighs. “Go figure.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

For a moment it looks like he’s going to argue back, but then, the fight goes out of him. “Forget it. Come on, it’s getting cold.”

They take their plates into the living room, put a sitcom on the TV, and eat in silence. But it’s not the comfortable kind of silence that she’s used to, when she’s with Akash. It’s colder, more pointed somehow.

At the end of the episode, Akash pauses the TV.

“What are we doing here, Helen?”

“What?” But then she sees the look on his face, and suddenly knows what this is about. “Oh for God’s sake Akash, is this about Max again? I’ve told you. He’s my friend, and I’m his doctor. He is dying. And right now, that’s more important than your ego.”

“My ego?” he snaps. “Is that what you think this is about, some kind of idiotic pissing contest? Look, I just think we need to face up to some things we’ve- _I’ve_ -been avoiding.” Suddenly, his voice softens, almost affectionate. “I don’t think you smile like that when you’re on the phone to me. And you sure as hell don’t look at me the way you look at him.”

She puts down the glass of wine she was about to take a sip from. “Akash we’ve been through this before. Nothing has ever happened between Max and I.”

It hurts, physically hurts, that he apparently doesn’t trust her. Sure, they have their disagreements, but how could even think that of her? She’s with him. Max is married. Or was.

“I know,” he says, surprising her. “You’re a good person, and so is Max,” he adds the last part a little grudgingly, she thinks. “But it’s not about what has or hasn’t happened, it’s about what you want.” His eyes lock onto hers, and he takes a long breath. “Helen, I love you. But I don’t want to be your default.”

She opens her mouth to argue, because that’s not fair. She has shared things with Akash that she was afraid to share with most people. She is contemplating starting a family with him. She would not have been willing to share her most cherished dream with just anyone, a default, as he puts it.

“Before you say anything, just answer me this,” he says. “If things were different, if you’d had the option, can you honestly say you would still have chosen me?”

At this question, she freezes. And thinks about it. But she doesn’t really need to think about it. Because she knows the answer. Has known it for a while. Has pushed it down with all the strength she has because it’s just not _right_. For a million different reasons. But if it all were different, if he hadn't been sick, if he hadn't been married, if they'd met that first day, both single, and unencumbered, what would she have done?

There’s no point pretending anymore. Max is her choice. She’s in love with him. Has been for some time. Probably always will be.

In a way, she’s the yin to Max’s yang. He chooses everything and everyone. She chooses him. Every time.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Akash. It seems like all she’s done in their relationship lately is apologize. But she supposes she owes him the respect of not trying to deny the truth they apparently both know.

He just nods. “I’m sorry too. Just know, I think we could have had something amazing here. But I’m not about to sit around and watch you slip away from me. Not anymore, anyway.”

He kisses her for the last time and leaves her apartment. She doesn’t see him again.

It takes Max a week or so to figure out that Akash isn’t around anymore. When he brings it up, she tells him the truth; that he broke up with her.

“He’s a fool for letting you go,” says Max, in that earnest way that only he can do, that makes her feel like she’s the most important person in the world. “Did he say why?”

She tells the truth about that, too.

“There was someone else.”

* * *

 

Months go by, which turn into a year, and nothing changes between them. Just because she accepts she loves him now, doesn’t mean she _gets_ him, after all. So, she contents herself with being there for him, and for Luna, and with guiding him through the cancer treatment. She comforts him the first time he has to leave Luna with a sitter. She keeps arguing with him, pulls him away from hospital business when he’s supposed to be there for immunotherapy, and backs him up when he bites off more than he can chew, yet again. She takes his place in board meetings that he’s too ill to attend. She’s there when Luna smiles at him for the first time (and she was right, it’s Max’s smile.) She is his eyes, ears, and voice in New Amsterdam. She is his most trusted confidante, his right hand, his second-in-command.

She loves him all the time. Quietly, privately, but constantly. Whispers still follow her, and she knows what the gossip says, but as long as it doesn’t get back to him, she’ll wear it. She decides that she will wait for him to come to her, if he’s ever ready, if he even _wants_ to. But she won’t lay another complication at his door.

And then one day, she’s in what is technically his office, but is now practically half hers. Ever since she started taking on more of his duties, it has been easier to use his office, it’s more central than her own. He had a key cut for her months ago, and basically told the board to go screw themselves when they took him to task about it.

“Most of the reason I am still standing here in front of you is because of Doctor Sharpe,” he told them, with an air of absolute finality. “I am the medical director of this hospital. She is the deputy I chose. I would, and have, trusted her with my life. So, you will give her a damn key.”

He lets himself in and drapes himself over a chair. He is not allowed back to work yet, but it seems as though he is through the worst of the side effects from the immunotherapy. The tide is slowly turning in their favor. If it all goes well, it won’t be long now before he will be able to reclaim his hospital. She can’t wait to see him racing through the halls again.

He looks agitated, and she immediately goes into doctor mode, terrified he might be backsliding. She swoops on him to examine him, ignoring his protests.

“Helen, I’m fine,” he chuckles, but stops resisting long enough to let her press her palm to his forehead, and to take his pulse. “I just came by to ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight.”

This is a common occurrence, they often have dinner together on her nights off, now that he seems to be getting over the nausea, though normally he just texts. The in-person invitation is unusual.

“Sure,” she says, barely looking at him, as she monitors his pulse rate on her watch. “Where?”

But then he reaches out until his hand is brushes the side of her face. Her mind seems to judder to a halt. He’s smiling at her, and it’s the one that makes her go weak at the knees.

“Just so we’re clear, when I say dinner, I don’t mean ‘meal between colleagues.’ I mean Helen Sharpe will you go out with me?”

She can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. “Like a date?”

“That’s what I was hoping for. It’ll be kind of a downer if the woman I love doesn’t feel the same way about me.”

Whatever she expected to hear; it wasn’t that. Not _that_ word, tossed out as casually as you please. He can’t have said what she thinks he’s said. So, the best course of action she feels, is to simply carry on like she hasn’t heard anything. She reaches for a blood pressure cuff and starts to wrap it around his arm.

Until a hand closes over hers and threads its fingers through her own. “I know that wasn’t exactly the most romantic way of saying it, but I gotta tell you Helen, I was expecting a bit more of a reaction than total indifference. You sure know how to wound a guy.”

Okay, so she hasn’t imagined it. He must feel how her heart has started to pound. He must be able to tell that her whole body seems to be in shock. This is everything she has wanted to hear for so long now, but it’s still not the right time. He’s still ill. He’s got Luna to think about.

“Max...”

“Look, I know I’ve got nothing to offer you. You want a family of your own. I come with a ready-made package deal, and I’ve got cancer. But I love you. And I want you. And if I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that you can’t count on much in this world, but _this_ , between you and me, I can count on. And I think you feel it too.”

Helen doesn’t even know where to start with all of that. How he could possibly think he has nothing to offer utterly baffles her. She has never known a more remarkable person than Max, every day she is grateful that people like him exist in the world. And of course, she loves him, and wants him, and trusts him, and feels exactly the way he does. But she can’t believe they’re actually having this conversation. It somehow feels like she’s been blindsided, and yet like she’s been waiting for it to happen forever.

“Of course, I do, Max. Of _course_ I do.”

It fills her with something indescribable when he smiles at her with the kind of joy she usually only sees when he’s around Luna.

“God, I was hoping you would say that.”

Their first kiss is not the way she always pictured it. For one, it didn’t involve a blood pressure cuff. For two, she wasn’t wedged between Max and the desk. And for a third, her pager wasn’t blaring in the background. And yet, with all those things, it is still somehow perfect.

In the office they share. In the hospital where they met. Smiling into the kiss, feeling his arms around her and feeling like she was designed to be in them.

It’s hard to let him go, but her pager will not be ignored.

“You’d better get that,” he says, a little breathlessly. “You’ve got lives to save.”

Ever so reluctantly, she withdraws the arms she threw around his neck and checks her pager. It’s Vijay. It’s probably important.

“Go do what you do best,” he tells her. “I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

She can’t help but lean forward and kiss him one more time, because she’s allowed to now, she’s allowed to shower him with every bit of affection he deserves. She deserves it too. They’ve both been waiting for this for a long time.

“You’d better be. Doctor’s orders.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I will appreciate any feedback you would like to give.


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